Sept. 13, 2025 - Epoch Times
04:43
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| We all know we aren't right about everything, right? | |
| I mean, do you know any human being on the face of this earth who only has true beliefs in his head and no false beliefs? | |
| Can anybody claim, oh, every belief in my head right now is true and none are false? | |
| We're capable of having false beliefs not only about the minor trivial superficial things of life, the things that don't matter that much, the things we don't really care all that much about. | |
| We frail, fallen, fallible human beings are capable of having false beliefs, being wrong about the profound important things, about the great issues, the issues of human nature, the human good, human dignity, human rights, human destiny. | |
| We can be wrong about the things that really matter to us. | |
| And that is a knock-down argument, a knockdown reason for treating people who disagree with us, even about things we really care about, even about things that are critically important to us, as friends from whom we can learn despite our disagreement. | |
| Friends that we should engage in a truth-seeking spirit, willing to listen, not just hear, but to listen. | |
| That's the message of my book. | |
| That's the message of seeking truth and speaking truth, which is why I I want especially young people to read the book. | |
| Now I I want people my age and people your age to read the book as well, but I care even more that they give it to their children, or in my case to their to their grandchildren, because if this generation rising today does not adopt a spirit of civic friendship, if they don't value civil discourse, then I promise you something. | |
| This grand experiment in Republican government and ordered liberty, bequeathed to us by our great founding fathers, will be lost. | |
| It depends on citizens treating each other when they disagree, not as enemies to be destroyed, but as friends to be reasonably disagreed with, argued with, engaged, perhaps passionately, but peacefully and in a spirit of friendship. | |
| Something I've been saying on a number of these shows that I've been on today, talking about this whole horrible situation, is this term it just came to my mind. | |
| It was the words are violence. | |
| Okay, this idea that words are violence. | |
| And I find it I I mean, maybe it's in the spirit of what happened here. | |
| I I I realize this is one of the most pernicious terrible concepts, because I mean, and this is I'd love it if you could kind of bring, you know, dig dig into this and show me where I'm wrong or or or or whatnot. | |
| But it feels it seems to me like human beings figured out somehow as human beings we have the ability to communicate and solve our problems without, let's say, clubbing each other or hurting or resorting to those methods. | |
| Without that communication, if we actually stop that communication, if that polarization that you're talking about actually and happens, then we lose all of it, right? | |
| And so just this concept, I I I've heard this idea voiced many times, but I didn't fully grasp until now, I I think, and please weigh in on this, how terrible a concept it is. | |
| Well, let's explore the arguments on the two sides of that question. | |
| I actually come down where you come down, rejecting the idea that speech is violence or words are violence. | |
| And and like you, I worry about that idea because I do think it's a pernicious idea. | |
| But let's give it its due. | |
| Let's explore the argument for the idea that words are violence. | |
| Because if we do that, we're going to find there's a kernel of truth, but more falsehood than truth. | |
| All right. | |
| So words can incite violence. | |
| There's no question about that. | |
| You know, if uh if we've got a starving crowd in front of a uh the home of a farmer who they believe to be hoarding corn when they and their children are are starving, and I get up in front of the crowd and say, he is starving us. | |
| He's the one who is responsible for our plight. | |
| Let's kill him and take his corn. | |
| That is inciting violence. | |
| So words can incite violence, and less directly. | |
| Calling somebody Hitler, or calling somebody a monster, or accusing somebody falsely of horrible things like racism and all the various phobias can lead people to think that a monster like that should be taken out. | |
| A monster like that should be destroyed. |
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